Using a new process in planetary formation modeling, where planets grow from tiny bodies called "pebbles," Southwest Research Institute scientists can explain why Mars is so much smaller than Earth. This same process also ...
Space Exploration
Oct 26, 2015
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Some estimates indicate that 25% of Sun-like stars have Earth-like planets. A new study now shows that these planets are almost certain to have oceans if they are located in the right temperature zone around their host stars.
Astronomy
Mar 4, 2011
16
0
The Kuiper belt—the region beyond the orbit of Neptune inhabited by a number of small bodies of rock and ice—hides many clues about the early days of the Solar System. According to the standard picture of Solar System ...
Astronomy
Jan 17, 2014
2
0
Rosetta's target "Chury" and other comets observed by space missions show common evidence of layered structures and bi-lobed shapes. With 3D computer simulations Martin Jutzi of PlanetS at the University of Bern was able ...
Space Exploration
May 29, 2015
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have imaged a very young brown dwarf, or failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star. The discovery is expected to shed light on the early stages of solar system formation.
Astronomy
Jul 29, 2010
3
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- Planets form in disks of dust and gas that surround young stars. A look at the birth places means a journey into the past of the earth and its siblings. Now, astronomers have been able to obtain detailed ...
Astronomy
Feb 17, 2011
5
0
Scientists have performed a micro-probe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-sized piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its formation, providing the first evidence that ...
Astronomy
Mar 3, 2011
13
0
An international team of researchers has found a planet around another star whose orbit is steeply tilted from the plane of the star's equator, a finding that contradicts some theories about how solar systems form.
Astronomy
Jun 17, 2009
9
1
Particles from comet 81P/Wild 2 brought to Earth in 2006 by NASA's Stardust spacecraft indicate that Jupiter formed more than three million years after the formation of the first solids in our Solar System. The new finding ...
Astronomy
Mar 1, 2012
0
0
New research reveals that the abundance of so-called highly siderophile, or metal-loving, elements like gold and platinum found in the mantles of Earth, the Moon and Mars were delivered by massive impactors during the final ...
Space Exploration
Dec 9, 2010
0
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